


Sunbathing on the Moon

by CheekyDoodles



Series: The DUNGEON [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Awkwardness, BAMF Merlin, Cute, M/M, Pole Dancing, Sexy Times, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-24 22:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3785791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheekyDoodles/pseuds/CheekyDoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working a usual night at the The Dungeon, Merlin gives a dance to one beautiful birthday boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunbathing on the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this took so long-- this has been so fun to write and I thank you guys for waiting & my editor, [the-floral-dragon](http://the-floral-dragon.tumblr.com/) for her help and general loveliness.

Merlin’s locker is a tricky thing; it only opens when he bangs it twice with his fist a certain way. He doesn’t mind, in fact it’s better than having to spin a lock combination. It was his friend Will who showed him that trick back when he first started working at The DUNGEON, which prompted their quick, sometimes competitive friendship.

Merlin shrugs his rucksack full of school books off his shoulders and stuffs it into the top cubby of his locker, hoping the snap he hears is just a pencil. He follows with his hoodie and is just toeing his hi-tops off when Lance, another quick friend, sits on the bench beside him.

“You’re early tonight,” he smiles. Which is a joke, because Merlin is always late. Tonight he’s simply on time. It’s his saving grace that their manager Gaius, a shrewd old man with shoulder length silver hair and a permanent case of stink eye, usually schedules him for the second half of the show.

Lance, or as he’s known to the crowd, _Sir Lancelot_ , is already in costume. Essentially, his costume is the tuille, fauld and gardbraces of a light aluminum suit of armour. All of which he’ll shed during his “Holy Grail” performance, showing off in only his black G-string. Lancelot is inarguably the famed dancer of the club, with his clever routines, smoldering eyes and perfect caramel arse. They get crowds from all over the city to see him work the pole. Seriously, how he can do a seamless striptease with _armour_ is some sort of miracle.

“I got out of class early,” Merlin supplies happily, shucking his pants and briefs. His cock is maybe two feet from Lance’s face, but Lance continues with the conversation, indifferent. It’s what seeing all your friends naked six nights a week does to you.

"How's school?" Lance asks, genuinely interested in Merlin's academic progress with his history degree.

"Um, good yeah. I mean it's school so, it's not the most exciting thing." Merlin decides while slipping on a thong of his own, mostly just to keep everything tucked in place. He follows up with little gold shorts that cup his bare arse nicely, give him a full range of flexible freedom, and landed him with the nickname "golden globes".

Lance laughs. "Well you sure are making up for the lack of excitement in your life."

"Yeah, I sure know how to spice things up."

Merlin stumbled into this job for the sheer amount of cash he collects every night. University isn't cheap and his flat might be a shoebox but it isn't cheap either. He's not sure why Lance chose this job, other than the fact that he was probably put together out of a "build your very own male stripper" kit. Merlin doesn't have the wear-with-all to ask.

Lance says he still has some time to get something to eat, leaving Merlin to finish getting ready. Reaching into his locker again, he adorns what is possibly his favorite costume piece so far: a heavy-hooded cloak of indigo velvet like the night sky, hems embroidered with little moons and stars. It's perfect for the whole "sorcerer" character he's typically roped into portraying, compliments of his birth name.

This month he's a mystical, crystal-born druid under the oh so creative moniker of _Black Magic_. Though, in his first few months on stage, he played the "naughty" servant boy who needed to be punished by _Prince Arthur_ (Will wearing a chintzy crown and grinning a shit-eating grin atop a throne). So he's not about to complain.

Merlin slides into a stool before the long vanity framed with big lightbulbs like glowing onions, where a few other dancers are involved with their make-up. A key element of his costume is the fragmented mask of silver and gold he painstakingly paints on with a tiny brush, so it's been different every night of this performance. He unzips his sizeable purple make-up bag (that he keeps in his tricky locker where it’s safe from the outside world where he isn't an exotic dancer) and dumps the pots and brushes he needs onto the counter, a puff of body glitter escaping the bag's mouth. Body glitter has become an omnipotent presence in his life. No number of showers can ever completely lift it from his skin, no number of laundry cycles can get the shimmer out of his clothes.

By the time he's all polished up and his muscles are stretched out, tonight's show has begun and Lance has returned with a styrofoam box of pork fried rice, letting Merlin sneak a bite here and there. Merlin doesn't ask if he actually strolled down the street for takeout in his costume. The "King", a large man named Helios with a head as shiny as the onion lights, has begun the formalities for tonight's patrons. His voice is hearty enough to resonate throughout the club without the use of a microphone. Although his amazing voice would suggest nice things, his thorny personality needs work.

The first acts move out, trusted with the daunting task of warming up the crowd. Once there's a steady flow of hoots and cheers from the patrons of the club, the first act retires to the comfortable chatter of the rec room with hands and banana hammocks full of wadded up bills, where a dozen others, including Merlin, wait for their cues. Sir Galahad, a flirtatious man with arms like tree branches (the chainmail of his knight attire cleverly cut away to show off this key feature), drops himself on the use-flattened red couch next to the Jester. A laugh picks up his blandly handsome features.

"That birthday boy sure was scared, eh? And redder than a tomato for Christ's sake!" He laughs again.

Birthday guests aren't an uncommon thing here-- in fact they have them every night. Everyone always seems to want to drag their freshly of-age friends to the strip club to forsake them to a night of nervous giggles, and the unique torment of protesting a lap dance. Most of the dancers think it's a rip-roaring good time, usually saving the "splash zone" seats for the unlucky birthday patrons.

"Wait 'til you see the couple blokes with him," Sir Galahad groans as if he'd just taken a big bite of a coconut cream pie, or something else sweet enough to make your mouth water for it. "One of 'ums got arms like King Kong. A sexy King Kong. Nice eyes too... I think I'm actually gonna mingle the crowd and see if I can't get his number."

Half of the remaining dancers laugh along and Merlin doesn't think anything more of it, above a quick, amused purse of his lips.

An hour passes as he keeps himself entertained talking with Will (playing the Slave Master, probably his highest reached rung on the erotic-medieval career ladder) about whatever subjects come to mind while halfway punching buttons on his gameboy. Pokémon Gold, the old square cartridge. He's just finally gotten his growlithe to evolve when Lance returns from his coveted performance, a gold goblet in his hand and what looks like this month's rent rubberbanded within his black g-string.

"Someone did good," Merlin arches his eyebrows. He saves his game and stows it. He'll be up next.

Lance shrugs, always a pillar of modesty. "It's a good night. That birthday group in the front of the splash zone is graciously generous, too."

Will spins in his stool, preoccupied with his own gameboy. "And the birthday lad is easy on the eyes, himself. Eyes like the sky, hair like the sun, shoulders as broad as a motorway..."

Merlin rolls his eyes. "Has anyone given him a dance yet?"

"I don't think so. What? Are you going to give him your specialty lap, _golden globes_?" Will nudges Merlin's side, winking in a way that might actually cause someone who found Will attractive to combust. But to Merlin it's just gross.

"I just might."

The King's brown sugar voice sneaks into the rec room, reciting the intro for Merlin's act. Uh oh. Merlin jumps from his stool, giving his luminous self a once over in the mirror before pulling his oversized hood over his head. Too late to fix any smudges now, anyway. Will wishes him his usual luck with a flick to the arse and Lance gives him the "encouraging Dad" thumbs up before he's out of sight.

Before the lights erupt with blue strobes and his music punches out of the speakers, Merlin stands barefoot at the stage edge. He sucks a deep breath down, soaks up the few seconds of quiet oasis to transcend into character. It usually only takes him a few seconds: his muscles hollow out, making his body weightless. He tames his face, wiping away any scribbles of emotion other than the chilled, predatory expression he'd admittedly perfected in the mirror at home. He rolls his neck, and steps into the bursting limelight.

If simply judging by the size of the crowd and the immediate hoots he receives, Lance was right, tonight is a good night. He makes his practiced, slinking steps to the middle of the catwalk, silver confetti swirling out of his way and sticking to the bottom of his feet, the kind that falls from the ceiling when a new car is given away. Merlin tilts his chin up, letting the hood fall and the crowd makes appreciative noises at the sight of his esoteric face.

Merlin isn't so hot himself in the harsh reality called broad daylight. What has he really got going for him with his seashell ears, scrawny frame and bird nest hair? But here, under the guise of lights, makeup and his natural prowess, where this hungry crowd doesn't know his name-- he is a force to be reckoned with.

As he reaches his pole he allows the cloak to fall away, a puddle of velvet behind and waves of cheers lapping all around the peninsula of his stage. Circling the pole, he shoots a glance through the splash zone and is not disappointed.

Flanked by a quad of handsome men, is the blue-eyed blonde with motorway shoulders. Motorway shoulders snug inside an awful argyle jumper, yet he's still one of the most attractive people Merlin has ever seen, with his infinitesimal smirk and posh air. Excited prickles overtake Merlin, like ants crawling up his legs. He doesn't allow their eyes to touch for long, inwardly stamping down the rising smile threatening his "mysterious" façade.

He's going to give this birthday boy the best performance of his life.

With both hands on the silver pole and no pretense, he lifts his lower body up and swings around and round the pole with a carousel spin that draws up more shouts.

This dance is the first one he was allowed to choreograph himself. Gaius is finicky with the routines and especially shrewd when a dancer with only one year of experience bumbles into his office with a proposal for their very own routine. After several more clumsy assertions, Gaius humored him, seeing just how skillful he'd grown in the past year, after previously having no little to no experience at all. Gaius said he'd had a gift. That had made Merlin laugh. The gift of being an extraordinary pole dancer.

Merlin eats up the energy of his audience and the knowledge that the blond boy's eyes are on him, channeling the vibrations in his bones to take out all the stops in his act. His set list consists mainly of spins, advanced poses and fluid inversions-- he basically never stops moving for too long.

Merlin takes advantage of one of his signature inversions, the orchid, to bend backward and lock eyes with the boy once again. He looks captivated, blushing like mad, awash in the blue of Merlin's spell. And Merlin can't wait any longer.

He steps off the safety of the stage already littered with notes amongst the flickering glitter and into the splash zone, stare welded to his prey. Merlin circles the boy with those dancer strides, reverent with the first feel of the blond's flushed, taunt skin running under his fingertips. He looks terrified now, and Merlin loves it, loves that he'll have him all to himself in these few coming moments.

Merlin drapes himself over his lap, resting his back on such a wide chest. Merlin unhinges the stranger's hot hands from the rests of his first-class seat, guides them like the dead things they are, down his own pearlescent thighs. He circles his hips agonizingly slow, delivering measured pressure into the stranger's ridged thighs. He's had plenty of other, less edible strangers pop stiffs from less than this.

Merlin disconnects all of himself minus a hand, ghosting it up one of the thighs he'd just had his arse on. He makes another circuit around his prey, seeing the instantaneous relief in the blond's body when he exhales. He probably thinks it's over. An unprofessional smirk creeps across Merlin's mouth as he takes his seat again, face to flustered face, free to assess these unbridled blue eyes. He'll have an upholstery burn on his knees later, but it's out of his mind.

Picking up his dead fish hands again, Merlin presses them to his sternum, drags them up, skin prickling with unsolicited _want_. Although slack, Merlin can tell his hands are strong and he wonders what he does for a living. They could do so much to Merlin, take him apart and put him back together like a damn model ship.

Magic at its finest, the club melts away, lights and sounds swirl meaninglessly into the swollen air around them. Visions of something more drag him away from reality, from this hectic room, just for a second, when he realizes his music is maybe ten seconds from ending.

Merlin snatches himself away and it's like ripping two magnets apart, both wistful from the loss and high from the roar of applause. Birthday boy doesn't clap. A rough and tumble brunette stuffs something in his shorts, making a bulge on his hip. Oh right. Money. He quickly swipes his cloak and collection of notes from the stage without daring to sneak a glance behind.

Merlin isn't aware of his uneven breaths until he graces the rec room, where the spell of the dance is ultimately broken. Just as immediately, there are hands clapping his shoulders and praises for him circulating the little room.

One of the hands squeezing his shoulder belongs to Will. "You killed it, mate! Damn show off."

"You'd have done the same," Merlin points out, breathless and a bit dizzy as he comes down.

Close beside, Lance laughs. "He's not wrong. You did great, Merlin."

"Thanks."

 

* * *

 

By his locker again, swallowed by his big hoodie and favorite socks on his chilly feet, Merlin spreads his earnings on the narrow bench between his thighs. He made enough to replace his ancient phone with its cracked screen, a good fraction of pounds thanks to the brunette. So he should be bragging to Will right now, but he's not feeling it. His body is far from weightless now. He's more or less feeling like a big slug. He has another slot to fill in an hour or more, a recycle of tonight's show, so he's got to refresh his makeup and get something to eat.

But that blond won't be in the crowd, he's sure of it. Merlin won't get to give him another dance, single him out and make him the center of the universe, if only for a few moments. He'll probably never see him and his awful jumper again.

Merlin stacks his money roughly and tucks it into his drawstring pouch with a forced out sigh, frustrated with this sappy infatuation for nothing but a (dreamy) customer.

This would of course be when Lance decides to not so much wander over but _sense_ Merlin's internal imbalance and home in on it, like the mom he is.

"Something on your mind?" Lance ventures, wearing black jeans now so when he leans on the locker he fills the role of some sort of men's apparel model.

"Nothing besides what new phone I'm going to get," Merlin lies cheerfully, stuffing his bag back into his trick locker and shutting it.

Lance's expression doesn't change. "You're thinking about that boy, aren't you." No question mark at the end.

Christ, is it written on his forehead? Merlin runs a hand through his hair. "No? Why would you think that?" Merlin makes a poor attempt at hiding the untruth with a "you're crazy" face.

Lance tilts his head, innocent. "I've just seen you do a lot less for a lot more."

Another "you're crazy" face. "Sure, whatever you say."

The knight shrugs, his consternated frown breaking into a tiny smile. "If I'm wrong, I'm wrong."

"But don't you at least want to know his name?"

Merlin stills, the firework of a notion he'd not considered crackling through his brain. A name? Of course the guy would have a name. "I guess, yeah? But I'm sure he's gone now, so what's it matter?"

Lance laughs to himself. "Oh, I'm sure it'll matter soon enough."

As he turns to leave, Merlin's suspicion starts turning cogs. He scrambles off of the bench, slipping on the tile with his monkey socks. "Hey wait, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I wouldn't change my number when you get your new phone, if I was you!”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Subscribe just in case I post any updates, and follow me, [calamity-annie](http://calamity-annie.tumblr.com/) for more Merthur!


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